


in the life

by seungyounbelievable (sysupportgroup)



Category: UNIQ (Band)
Genre: M/M, four times that yixuan took care of his kids and one time they took care of him, lapslock, mentions of prince mak (jjcc), single dad!yixuan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4341221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysupportgroup/pseuds/seungyounbelievable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's not easy managing four kids</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the life

**Author's Note:**

> done to celebrate ask-uniq's 1k benchmark~
> 
> find me at u-n-i-fics.tumblr.com, @chahakyeoff on twitter and @u_n_i_fics on ask.fm <3

_one_

 

“dad!” small hands shake him awake and he grunts, wanting to clench his eyes shut. a small weight scrabbles at the blankets and shimmies up onto the bed like a monkey, “dad, dad, dad!”

 

yixuan ooofs at the sudden weight on his chest and forces his eyes to open, blinking blearily as a cheek splitting grin swims into view.

 

“hey dad,” seungyeon chirps because at five am, it could only be seungyeon, “will you play soccer with me?”

 

“seungyeon,” yixuan closes his eyes and huffs softly but he can’t prevent a fond smile from rising to his lips, “it’s a bit early, don’t you think?”

 

“no,” seungyeon pouts petulantly, scooting himself inch by inch up yixuan’s chest and leans forward on his small elbows until he’s nearly eye to eye with him, “never too early for soccer.”

 

“oh really?” yixuan arches an eyebrow and tries to wiggle an arm sneakily out from where it’s pinned under his body, “because guess who doesn’t think so?”

 

“you?” seungyeon mumbles disappointedly, glancing down at his grass-stained lucky jersey, “but i changed and everythin.”

 

yixuan’s heart softens a little at seungyeon’s fallen face and internally, he can already feel himself regretting this, “well, i didn’t say i didn’t think so.”

 

“then who - “

 

yixuan’s arms shoot out and he makes sure that he’s got a good grip on seungyeon before he starts tickling him viciously, “the mean ol’ tickle monster that’s who!”

 

seungyeon squirms and giggles, kicking out and flailing, “daaaaaaaad, i’m a big boy now - “

 

“but the tickle monster still gets big boys.” yixuan grins, laughter lighting up his tired features and bringing life to his sleep-encrusted eyes. seungyeon’s happiness is infectious, he knows first hand. “rawr,” he pretends to chomp down on seungyeon’s hair and the boy lets out a little screech, batting at him.

 

“daddy!”

 

“gotcha,” yixuan wraps the six year old in his arms and tugs him towards his chest, kissing him on the head and helping him climb under the covers, “now you’ve gotta lie down quietly a little longer and then we’ll play soccer later, okay?”

 

“ok.” seungyeon grumbles but squishes himself up against yixuan’s side, curled up in a little ball, “but can we play tea party too? and lego? and dress up?”

 

“what about the others, hmmm? i’m sure they’d be happy to play with you too.”

 

“nuh uh,” seungyeon rests his head on yixuan’s chest and speaks into his shirt, “they’ll think i’m weird.”

 

“no they won’t,” yixuan runs his hand through seungyeon’s hair and smooths his thumb over seungyeon’s forehead to banish the wrinkle appearing there, “if you just ask them, i’m sure they’d say yes. all of you should learn to co-operate properly.”

 

“don’t wanna. i wanna play with daddy.”

 

“okay, okay,” yixuan’s done with imparting life lessons at this time of the morning. he’ll let it go for now but sometimes he wishes his kids could learn to play more together, “fine. but later, okay darling? now is sleep time.”

 

“sleep time.” seungyeon echoes and yixuan wraps an arm protectively around him.

 

“yeah,” yixuan yawns widely, “sleep time.”

* * *

 

_two_

 

“…and then, the monster crept up behind the three little boys and - “

 

“what’s going on here?” yixuan pushes the door of sungjoo’s door open and stares in confusion as the four figures on the bed scream loud enough to tear the house down.

 

“shhhh,” he tries to pacify them, flicking on the light and taking a couple of slow steps into the room. he’s fairly sure that wenhan is tearing up a little and seungyeon doesn’t seem to want to let go of yibo anytime soon, “it’s just me, it’s just daddy, okay?”

 

“daddy?” sungjoo pops his head out from underneath the covers where he’d apparently hidden himself, “thank god!”

 

“we thought you were the monster.” yibo sniffs, trying to pry seungyeon’s fingers off of his pyjama top and wiping at his nose with his other hand. at first glance, he doesn’t seem to be that shaken but yixuan can tell there’s something wrong.

 

“what monster?” he demands sharply, striding over quickly to rub a hand up and down yibo’s back. his eyes dart around the room and land on sungjoo, always obvious by the way his eyes avoid his, “kim sungjoo, what did you do.”

 

“nothing!”

 

“are you sure?”

 

“…yes?”

 

“alright,” yixuan shakes his head and shoos the other kids gently out of sungjoo’s room, “why don’t you guys get ready for bed whilst i look after your brother. wenhan, get their teeth brushed and their faces washed, okay?”

 

his second oldest bobs his head quickly and before long, it’s just him and a fidgeting sungjoo.

 

“so,” yixuan sits himself on the bed and drops himself to be at eye-level with sungjoo, “are you going to tell me now?”

 

“i just wanted to have some fun.” sungjoo mutters, picking at the covers and keeping his eyes firmly trained downwards. yixuan sighs and shakes his head.

 

“sungjoo, i’m not mad at you. just tell me what happened, okay?”

 

“i told them a scary monster story.” he says hesitantly, stumbling over his words, “and then you came in and we got scared.”

 

“…alright then.” yixuan runs a hand through his hair and purses his lips, “was that because you wanted to scare them?”

 

“maybe.” sungjoo lifts his hand to his mouth and nibbles on a fingernail. yixuan notices and tuts, gently guiding his hand away from his mouth.

 

“well sungjoo,” he tries to keep his tone kind but firm, “as the oldest out of everyone, you need to have some responsibility for them. you can’t just scare them because you think it’s funny, yeah? imagine if they scared you like that - you wouldn’t like it, would you?”

 

minutely, sungjoo’s head moves right and then left.

 

“exactly,” he ruffles sungjoo’s hair and furrows his eyebrows, “let’s just hope that they have no nightmares tonight, hmmm? and in the morning, you’ll apologise right?”

 

“yes.”

 

“say it louder for me.”

 

“yes, i’ll apologise.”

 

“good boy,” yixuan kisses him on the forehead and sighs, “have you washed up and gotten ready for bed?”

 

“yep.”

 

“alright then, i’ll go check up on everyone else now, okay?” yixuan gets up from sungjoo’s bed and helps to tuck him in, covers nice and snug around sungjoo’s small body, “goodnight sweetheart, i love you.”

 

“love you too dad, thanks,” sungjoo mumbles and yixuan smiles softly.

 

“just don’t do it again. otherwise i’ll have to make you do the dishes for a week, yeah?”

 

“yeah…”

 

“alright then, goodn- “

 

“wait dad!”

 

yixuan turns around from where he’s just about to close sungjoo’s room door, “yes?”

 

“can you um,” sungjoo pauses, “not close the door? just leave it open? a little bit?”

 

“why?” yixuan does what he asks but leans against the doorframe still, waiting for an answer.

 

“because…there might be monsters…under my bed…”

 

“there aren’t any monsters under your bed,” yixuan asserts and knowing that sungjoo’s still not convinced, he adds, “and if there are, dad’s awesome tai chi skills will get protect you and get rid of them, okay?”

 

“yeah…” sungjoo yawns loudly, mind seemingly more at ease, “okay.”

* * *

 

_three_

 

"daddy,” yibo pronounces from his chair, small chubby fists drumming against the table, “i’m hungry.”

 

“hungry?” yixuan asks distractedly, trying to hustle up lunches in a whirlwind of peanut butter, bananas and ham, “can you hold on just for a moment and daddy will be done soon.”

 

“hungry,” yibo repeats again but he sits quietly, fiddling with his cat plushie whilst yixuan finishes cutting the crusts off of wenhan’s sandwich and finishes packing the lunchboxes.

 

“come and grab your lunchboxes!” yixuan claps his hands together and as if they’d been magically summoned, wenhan, sungjoo and seungyeon appear, tumbling over each other in a race to get to the door.

 

yixuan tries to control the chaos as best he can - helping wenhan struggle into his coat, making sure seungyeon has socks on, tying up sungjoo’s laces, “have a good day. i love you. yes, wenhan, wolverine will be okay without you.” he kisses them each on the head and as gently as he can, pushes them out of the door, face softening at the chorus of clumsy, “i love you"s.

 

he takes a moment to catch his breath, watching his kids laugh and skip down the driveway as the schoolbus rolls down the street and stops outside the house.

 

he waves back to wenhan as they spill onto the bus, falling over each other to get the best seats. a simple smile crinkles upwards on his face as the bus drives away.

 

"okay,” he mumbles to himself absently, “yibo now.”

 

he shuts the door firmly and hums as he strides back into the kitchen, bustling around to put away the jars and packages, “okay yibo, what do you want to eat?”

 

“don’t care,” yibo mumbles, patting his toy cat solemnly, “hungry.”

 

yixuan shakes his head with a soft laugh and rakes his hand through his hair, “okay then, a peanut butter sandwich it is.”

 

“no,” yibo wrinkles up his nose but doesn’t look up from shuyu, cuddling it close, “i don’t want peanut butter.”

 

“okay,” yixuan rests himself on the counter and drums his fingers on the counter in thought, “what about some fruit? there are strawberries, bananas, mandarins…”

 

“don’t want fruit.”

 

“didn’t you say you were hungry?” yixuan yawns and lifts his hand to cover his mouth, reaching over to the other counter for his mug of coffee.

 

“i’m hungry.” yibo repeats, sullenly this time, with his eyebrows furrowed in the same way as yixuan’s usually are.

 

“okay,” yixuan repeats patiently after he’s taken a large swallow from his mug, “what do you want to eat then?”

 

yibo thinks, putting shuyu down on the table and clutching his hands together like he’s seriously considering the question, “i want to eat porridge.”

 

yixuan blinks twice in surprise and a wry smile rises, “didn’t you say that porridge was icky last time?”

 

yibo doesn’t say anything, just the sounds of his feet hitting against the table top filling the empty silence.

 

“okay,” yixuan shakes his head and presses his lips together, turning around to retrieve the pot and rice from the cupboards, “but you better eat it, okay?”

 

“okay.”

 

“promise?”

 

“promise.”

 

the stove flickers on and soon, the pot full of water and rice is boiling merrily along. yibo’s been playing superman with shuyu, making whooshing noises with his mouth when yixuan isn’t looking. it’s almost funny sometimes how much his youngest wants to prove himself, yixuan thinks amusedly as he stirs the gluggy porridge around in the pot to the background noise of /pew pew pow/.

 

“okay,” he calls over his shoulder when it’s finally done, coupled with some left overs from last night, “put shuyu away now, darling. it’s time for breakfast.”

 

he ladles the porridge carefully out of the pot into a bowl for himself and yibo’s plastic tweetybird one. “here.” he places it in front of yibo with his matching plastic spoon, “be careful okay? it’s hot.”

 

he blows on his own spoon, watching yibo out of the corner of his eye. yibo picks up his spoon and jams it directly into the porridge, using his entire hand to stir it around the bowl slowly.

 

“it’s nice,” he shoots a thumbs up to yibo, widening his eyes and nodding over-enthusiastically, “do you want me to cool it down for you?”

 

yibo doesn’t reply and makes a face down at the bowl, nose wrinkling.

 

yixuan can already feel dread settling at the bottom of his stomach.

 

“come on,” he encourages hurriedly, scooping up some of yibo’s porridge for him and blowing on it, “daddy will help you blow, okay?” he moves it closer to yibo’s mouth and his hand hangs in midair, “now open up, sweetie. the train’s coming in - chuga chuga chuga choo choo…”

 

but all he’s met with is a close lipped pout and shake of a head.

 

“it’s gross, i don’t wanna eat it.”

 

“no it’s not!” yixuan pops the spoon in his mouth and makes exaggerated happy mmm noises as he chews and then swallows, “yibo you promised me you’d eat it.”

 

“sorry daddy,” yibo says quietly, shrugging and looking down at shuyu who’s resting next to his chair, “but it’s gross.”

 

and with that, he slides off his chair and drops to the floor, clutching shuyu to his chest as he runs off down the corridor. only a disappointed yixuan is left, alone with two bowls of rapidly cooling porridge.

* * *

 

_four_

 

“oh woah,” henry whistles lowly over the phone in astonishment and yixuan has to strain to listen when a child shrieks loudly from the playground. he arches his neck to check that his boys aren’t involved, scanning the playground for sights of a red baseball cap, mini ponytail, basketball jersey and a plush toy cat.

 

he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees seungyeon swinging on the monkeybars, sungjoo pushing yibo boisterously on the swings and wenhan playing in the sandpit.

 

“…deal with all four.” henry is still saying in his ear and he nods distractedly before realising that henry can’t actually hear him.

 

“they don’t exactly make my life easy,” he sighs, “but they’re my happiness, mak.”

 

his friend snorts softly, “must be for you to be such a great dad to them.”

 

“thanks,” yixuan chuckles before he’s interrupted by a loud wail and sobbing from the playground. in the next moment, wenhan is being ferried over to him by sungjoo’s piggyback, the younger ones running behind him.

 

“have to go mak,” he rushes out, taking in wenhan’s tear stained face, “seems like an emergency this weekend. call you back.” he hangs up with a click and shoves his phone into his back pocket, leaning forwards to lift wenhan off of sungjoo’s back and onto his lap, “what happened, sungjoo?”

 

as soon as wenhan’s propped up against his body, he can see what the matter is. blood is trickling down a gash on wenhan’s sand-encrusted leg, making ugly red trails downwards. he digs around in his bag for his first aid kit - a necessity when he brings wenhan anywhere - whilst sungjoo babbles.

 

“i said that we should play tag so i ran up and tagged wenhannie! so wenhannie was it and i started runnin away from him and then he ran after me and then he fell over in the sand and there was a stick and it cut him and, and, and now he’s bleedin!”

 

“okay,” yixuan pulls out a cotton swab and dabs gently around the cut to get rid of the blood. wenhan grips his shoulders tightly, small fingers digging into his jumper, sniffling tearfully, “shhh, don’t worry we’ll take care of this. trust daddy.” he nods at seungyeon and yibo, “why don’t you two keep playing, hmmm? you too sungjoo. ge will be alright in a minute because he’s our brave little boy, right?”

 

he gives wenhan’s cheek a smacking kiss and his chest relaxes and loosens when wenhan stops sniffling and goes quiet.

 

“mmm,” seungyeon scuffs the toe if his shoe on the cement and then takes a step forward, rising up on his toes to kiss wenhan’s cheek too, “there. wenhan’s really brave!”

 

sungjoo’s eyes widen and he bounces up and down like he’s the one who thought of it first, “yeah! don’t cry wenhannie!” and he kisses wenhan on the cheek resoundingly too. he runs away with seungyeon after that, giggling together as they head for the slide.

 

yibo stands in front of them awkwardly as yixuan finishes cleaning the blood off of wenhan’s leg, reaching for the disinfectant and xmen bandaids.

 

“you know this might sting a little,” yixuan warns wenhan as he positions the bottle, “but yibo will hold your hand, "right darling.”

 

“okay.” comes the answer and yibo hefts his body up onto the park bench, sitting patiently with shuyu and placing his cat’s paw in wenhan’s hand, “shuyu always makes me feel better, ge.”

 

wenhan hiccups but grips onto the paw as yixuan sprays the cut a few times, cleaning the wound of bacteria. wenhan hisses and his leg jerks, never used to the pain even though bruises cover his knees and old scars from cuts.

 

yixuan pats and smooths a bandaid over the cut, kissing it for good measure as wenhan slowly returns to all smiles, kissing yixuan awkwardly on the ear when his head moves, “i love you daddy.”

 

“love you too, wenhan.” yixuan pats his head and sighs, “but please try to be careful in the future, hmmm?”

 

“okay dad,” wenhan struggles off of his lap and helps yibo down from the bench too, tear tracks distracted from by his crooked grin, “i’ll try.”

 

“that’s what he always says,” yixuan mutters absently in a wearily affectionate tone under his breath as the two walk away, shuyu swinging between them, “but he never changes.”

* * *

 

_five_

 

“hey daddy,” yixuan’s eyes fly open. it’s not like he was sleeping well anyway, his fever wracking his body and making him sleep uneasily. it had started with a cough that wenhan had gotten from his classmates and snowballed from then when all of his kids had been sick on the weekend, only feeling better yesterday.

 

and then of course, he starts.

 

“yes?” he croaks out, shifting onto his side to start straight into sungjoo’s eyes despite the protest in his bones and the bags under his bloodshot eyes, “what is it sweetie?”

 

“we’re sorry.”

 

“for what?” he coughs into his elbow and blinks his blurry eyes as seungyeon, wenhan and yibo spread out next to sungjoo, shuffling their feet.

 

“for makin you sick,” seungyeon crosses his arms and hunches over, his usual life seemingly sapped out of him, “‘cause you had to look after us.”

 

“yeah,” wenhan adds, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily, “we didn’t want you to get sick, dad.”

 

“it’s not your fault,” yixuan laughs disbelievingly, “i should have taken better care of myself.” he tries to muster a smile despite the fifty tons that he feels crushing his chest as he speaks.

 

“but we wanna take care of you.” yibo pipes up, tone too grave for his five years of age, “daddy, take shuyu.” he shoves the cat toy into yixuan’s surprised hands and puts his hands into his pockets instead, “he makes me feel better.” yibo mumbles and looks away from yixuan. he’s at a loss for words. ever since yixuan had won that cat for yibo at a fair, he’d never given it to someone to hold before, even washing the cat himself.

 

if he gets a little teary, he blames it on the fever.

 

“and,” sungjoo pulls something out from behind his back and holds it out for yixuan to see, “we made you food. because you made us food all the time.”

 

it’s a plate of peanut butter sandwiches with banana and ham in them. some of them have their crusts off sloppily, looking like they’ve been torn rather than cut off.

 

yixuan laughs hoarsely but stops himself midway, throat too scratchy, “all of you are so sweet to me,” he cuddles shuyu closer, “now i can sleep,” he nods at the plate, “and eat. what did i ever do to deserve such perfect children?”

 

“you didn’t have to,” wenhan says shyly, “dad was already that cool.”

 

“yeah,” seungyeon adds and hops up and down on yixuan’s bed, making sure not to get too close, “almost as cool as superman.”

 

“nuh uh, batman.”

 

“wolverine!”

 

“spiderman!”

 

yixuan grimaces as the rest of them fling themselves onto the bed and start bouncing up and down, pushing each other in argument. he’d be lying if he said their shouting hadn’t hurt his headache but he can’t bear to bring them down. he eyes the sandwiches warily though, not daring to try one.

 

no one ever said that being a parent was easy, he thinks, letting his eyes fall shut with his sudden loss of energy.

 

his kids pick it up and one by one, start to settle, arranging themselves around yixuan and soon, they’re all tuckered out and out of breath, drifting off to dreamland.

 

he should join them soon, he thinks absently as he closes his eyes, four warm bodies keeping the bed warm. he can feel each of them against his body and the beating of their hearts seem to be one.

 

it’s moments like these that make parenting worth it, yixuan thinks. the moments where they look at you like you’re the sun and stars. the moments where they give their your love back to you. the moments where your kids are your fuel, their smiles, laughter and happiness driving you to the moon and back.

 

and yeah, sometimes he gives too much love away, drains it out of himself until he’s an empty shell running on fumes. but on those days, he just thanks the universe that he has his four to give that love right back.


End file.
